Iodine Treatment Helps Menopausal Woman's Sluggish Thyroid

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Iodine Treatment Helps Menopausal Woman's Sluggish Thyroid

Few things in life are as maddening as getting inadequate treatment for an ongoing medical problem. That was exactly the tight spot I found myself in until I saw Dr. Flechas.

Despite taking thyroid medication for more than a year, I continued to show all the classic symptoms of hypothyroidism - a condition that commonly strikes menopausal women in their fifties. Symptoms ranged from hair thinning, hair loss, dry skin, anxiety and confusion to weight gain, sleep deprivation, cold hands and feet, shortness of breath, dry eyes, increased appetite and occasional bouts of depression. Then, just when I thought my underactive thyroid had reached flashpoint, more symptoms popped up. My scalp had become itchy and chronically tender to the touch. What's more, my hair had become dull, limp and lifeless; it was falling out at an alarming rate. Sure, my thyroxine (T4) was in the normal range, but it didn't answer the most basic question: why did I continue to feel so crummy? How could the thyroid medication explain away the sore scalp, the thinning, limp, lifeless hair? How could it explain why I was still feeling sluggish and run down? Sure, my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) reading was in the normal range, but that was hardly reassuring as long as I was feeling hungry all the time, as long as I was craving carbs. Sensing something had gone terribly wrong, I began to wonder whether I was being undertreated, overtreated or misdiagnosed altogether. I was also deeply concerned that if my hypothyroidism wasn't brought under control, this could lead to even more serious health problems - elevated cholesterol, heart disease, osteoporosis, and chronic depression, to name a few.

My inner warning system told me to get a second opinion - this time, not just from any doctor - but from someone with a solid track record.

No typical doctor, Dr. Flechas stands out not only because he stays on top of the latest therapies, but because he's not afraid to think outside the box. Moreover, he has successfully treated patients with life-threatening disorders ranging from fibromyalgia to thyroid cancer. What impresses me most, though, is, unlike some doctors, who are only too glad to push pills, he weans his patients off prescription drugs if it's in their best interest to do so.

By contrast, some physicians lean toward a particular medication only because that's what other doctors are doing - sometimes at the patient's great expense. As Dr. Flechas pointed out, they're short-sighted, paying attention to only a narrow subset of test results. They fail to see the whole picture, he said, because far too few doctors know how to interpret all the numbers. Even worse, some go on thinking everything's okay, even as the patient's condition continues to slip.

What sets Dr. Flechas apart is his ability to grasp the big picture right off the bat. Case in point: on the first visit, even though he noticed my TSH reading was in the normal range, he knew that was hardly reason to dismiss the long list of symptoms I came in with. To the contrary, the symptoms were an indication that the thyroid medication was not having the desired impact on my body.

But he didn't stop there. Instead, he examined the thyroid gland as well as the breast issue, only to find more tell-tale signs of an underactive thyroid: breast nodules and an enlarged thyroid. And, after looking at the test results which the endocrinologist had ordered six months prior, he couldn't help but notice that my Thyroid Peroxidase (TPO) Ab (antibody) reading of 910 H IU/ml was totally out of the 0-to-34 normal range. That's when it hit me: the endocrinologist had completely overlooked the TPO Ab.

"Your thyroid is starving for iodine," Dr. Flechas said, adding that Iodine deficiency was the primary reason the thyroid medication wasn't working in my case. As he went on to explain, the thyroid medication was supplying thyroxine (T4), one of two essential thyroid hormones, but because my body wasn't getting enough iodine, my thyroid hormone receptors that let my body know there is thyroid hormone in the cells was malfunctioning. Hence, my "body behaved as if it had no thyroid onboard," he said.

I now take Iodine tablets daily, in addition to Synthroid, and I can honestly say I've not felt this good in over a year. After just one week, energy levels are soaring, and I dropped three pounds without even trying. Gone are the bouts of depression, the dry skin problems and the pasta cravings. Even my hair has more lift, bounce and luster. More amazing still, the day after I started the Iodine therapy, my scalp stopped hurting.

Though it's far too early to know what order-of-magnitude improvements lie ahead, Dr. Flechas expects that as the level of iodine in my body climbs, I'll need less and less thyroid medication, and that ultimately I'll be able to function normally without it. Only time will tell whether the iodine is going to shrink what Dr. Flechas calls the "baby fat" surrounding my slightly swollen thyroid gland. Only time will tell whether the iodine is going to dissolve the breast nodules and replace more than a year's worth of hair loss. But with Dr. Flechas right at the forefront of so much success with his patients, I have every reason to be optimistic.

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